Author's note: I'd like to say that I'm partially guilty of the issues I'm addressing in this text, and this is part of an effort to change myself and my habits that could also help other people.

There is a time in our lives that we think that we don't have time to anything, and I won't deny, taking school as serious activity, accomplishing your responsibilities and everything is nearly equivalent to having a full time job: you go to school, watch your classes, take work to be done in your home, have to study, and show the results to your teacher (that could be called your boss). We may think that there isn’t way we could do all the things we have to do but our parents say: "You have lots of free time..."

Guess what? They're right, younger people might not notice this but once you get to work or go to college for a full time study (or even, if you study and work in part-time job) you have to dedicate yourself much more than you did before, and things get a little hectic.

You may find yourself often neglecting your fun because you had an assignment or because you're "too tired to do anything", and here is the point when you stop dedicating attention to your favorite game. Maybe, you have more interesting things to do now in your free time (a girlfriend or boyfriend, maybe), or you want some sort of fun that won't take dedication over a long period of time and that will have an quick result to entertain you (such as movies, or games that are more skill based).

Either that or you start to slack because "more 2 levels to max my character", maybe because you "just need that slotted high level gear", and "I'm tired and don't feeling like doing this assignment now... what about a quick dungeon-run guild mates?" and you find yourself more and more overworked and tired, and that starts affecting your personal life.

Let's face a reality: unless you're a professional gamer (and by professional I'm talking about like the guys in South Korea who spend 12 or more hours daily training in Star Craft, or the people who compete in world-wide Counter Strike or Unreal Tournament scene), playing video games is just to have fun, maybe serious fun, but still fun. As such, once games start to affect your real-life you should star thinking about your habits... you know, slacking your job because of games may get you fired, and failing in school isn't better.

Anyway, even in your occupied life, you may want to keep gaming, it's a good hobby, you've been doing this for years, you have friends online and you use gaming to relax after a busy week. MMOs (and mainly MMORPGs) become a guilty pleasure, they take lots of time from you, you must grind your levels and your equipment, you may do the same dungeon or kill the same boss multiple times to get the equipments you want/need, and you may keep honing your skills for PVP and guild/faction sieges. There are things you can do to balance your increasingly responsibilities and your gaming activities.

• Set priorities: Being the 1st player on PvP ranking or an active member of the guild with most territories in a game may give you some respect inside your game, but what about outside of it? And what about 10 years in the future, how being a great PvPer will help you? You shall set your priorities, in a job interview, showing a diploma from a good university, or actual work experience with good recommendations from your former bosses will be far more worthy than telling your employer "I killed the Lich King alone". So, if gaming isn't your profession, let gaming be in the place it should be.

• Make a schedule: See what you have to do, when you have to do, how much time it will take do to your responsibilities and write it down, the stick with that. Trust me, the psychological effect of looking and schedule and trying your best to follow is best to keep you on track. Remembering "out of your head" will end with you mixing up the order of the things and procrastinating certain activities.

• Talk to people: Saying to your guild leader and other people that you have important things to do and all might take out the pressure to stay on the game and neglect what you should be doing.

• Make a to do list: If you have a paper, a test, a field-trip, among other things in the same week, you'll most likely to forget of other responsibilities, or remember when is late and you'll have to cram up.

• "Do it, and do it now!": An old saying is: "Don't wait for tomorrow what you can do today." Guess what (again)? It's right. The sooner you do things, fewer things will pile up, the less tired and stressed you'll feel, and you'll have more free time. You know, if you had reviewed the subject's matter in little bits along the week, you wouldn't need to cram up the night before the finals, right?

• Stick to it: it won’t work if you don’t persist, unexpected things may happen and throw all your efforts out of the window, but you must try your best to stick to your schedule and your responsibilities.

Now you have done it all and have some free time right? Wait, there's still more to do.

• Manage your free time - You may have done everything you have to do along the week and now have one or two free hours most of weekdays and from Friday’s evening till Sunday night to do all you want to do, right? Of course! But don’t overdo one single thing.  Here are some advices:

1. Keep in touch with your family and friends - you may grow tired of your game, it may cease its services and all, but your family and friend will be there to give the support when you need, and they may need your support also. It's not a good thing to neglect the people that care about you and you should be caring for. Of course, you may have "friends" in game, but it the game is taken out of the equation and they're not so friendly anymore, than its not really friendship.

2. Do some physical exercises - Juvenal, a roman poet from the 1st century, already said "mens sana in corpore sano" (a healthy mind in a healthy body). You may think that doing some kind of physical activity will make you more tired, but in truth, it will give you more energy to deal with your daily life and in the long run, and preserve your own health.

3. Game with responsibility: don't overdo it. Staying awake the whole weekend playing may be temptating to compensate for the time you were away, however you may start your new week weary because of that, and all your efforts to balance your activities will be gone. Chose a game that can fit your schedule and don’t commit yourself to tasks and goals you can’t do, if you can’t be online for a five hour dungeon siege, look for other activities you can do in that game or either change games.

Sure, games may not give you a compensation for winning at life, but having a life have is a very worthy achievement and have its own rewards (pun intended). So, you have any experience about your life and your responsibilities? Have you been able to keep gaming as they increased?

"Balance is the key!" - It may sound corny, but such sayings hold some truth.